Entrepreneur’s have been around since the dawn of time. They have contributed to the growth and expansion of just about every civilization’s economy in recorded history in one way or another. Of course over time, they have had different levels of impact and function, but were important none the less.

In this day and age there is a huge need for entrepreneurs, one could even say the need is greater now than it has ever been.

Below is a fun infographic that depicts how the entrepreneur has evolved over time, and showcases the type of entrepreneur that is needed most in the 21st century.

Deciding to take a plunge towards your dreams can be a scary and exciting event as an entrepreneur. Of course with every great adventure comes unexpected obstacles and challenges. That’s why preparing for success is critical. Knowing that challenges will arise before you start on your entrepreneurial journey or adventure can be extremely advantageous. Even more important however, is knowing how to detect what may not initially appear to be an obstacle. It will also be helpful to ensure you are equipped with the appropriate tool or techniques to face these obstacles effectively.

For those of you beginning on your new journey towards your the creation of the business of your dreams, know that obstacles come in all shapes and sizes. Something as simple as an argument with a colleague, sibling, or spouse, a flat tire, a water pipe bursting in your backyard, or just about any random life event that has the potential to pull you away from doing what you initially set out to do can be seen as an obstacle. In essence, life can and will distract you away from your need to kick-start your business idea, away from your needing to take the actions necessary to make your business a reality.

Being prepared for such random curve balls will make them easier to overcome. More importantly though, is knowing how to mentally diffuse such occurrences. The best method I’ve come across is a combination of two things, 1.) keeping a schedule no matter what, and 2.) keeping a journal.

By keeping a schedule that you commit to unwavering from, you set yourself up to get realigned with your priorities quickly in the event that some random life event attempts to derail you. There is something very effective about making appointments with yourself to get things done. If ever you get off schedule, you will feel a mental tug…which is hard to ignore and thus is essentially good. It is good because it has the potential to get you back in the game, taking action on those tasks that will help you reach your goal.

The next method is keeping a journal. Keeping a journal has done wonders for me in terms of keeping me on track. Every morning I write about my goals, aspirations, and my progress in certain areas. As such, committing to writing down your challenges daily can serve a as a terrific reminder, and troubleshooting tool to help you navigate around/through the goal-threatening obstacle that you inevitably face.

In summary, life will try to distract you. If you wish to one day live out the vision that you set your heart upon, it will be important for you to be prepared for these potential life derailing events, know how to spot them, and finally, have some techniques up your sleeve by which you can ensure the successful overcoming of such obstacles. To plan for challenges is to plan for success. So go get your planning on.

The world is a very dynamic and complex place. Developing countries are growing economically at rates that stagger the mind, and at rates that are increasingly putting pressure on our country’s ability to compete. In addition, our homegrown corporations are increasingly tapping the talent that exists overseas on the cheap, which is creating a population gap of people who lack the skills that are necessary for organizations desperately needing to stay profitable.

Therefore, I will say it! If we are going to compete as a country, we will need to start making some dramatic changes now. As a country that has experienced so much material wealth in the past century due to the successes that the American manufacturing complex helped produce, we are either in for a rude awakening, or a forced shift. Recently, I came across an article on USA Today that mentioned how many companies are actually profitable right now regardless of the layoffs, and that on average, the countries GDP has grown.

What this tells me, is that our work force, and therefore a large portion of our society, is in need of retraining or more education. It appears that the ideas and education of the past has not placed our population in a position that is not conducive to staying competitive on a global scale for long.

So we need to change, as a whole from the ground up. Where does it all start? I would say it all starts in the classroom. We have students being trained in this day and age for being engineers, IT professionals, doctors, lawyers, and general laborers. This is a problem it seems, especially since many of the aforementioned will be made available in other countries for almost nothing if not already, and the doctors and lawyers are so few in number that a large portion of society is going to have to wake up and activate themselves.

As far as I can tell, one of the most important developments in our population is going to be in the creation in more designers, creators, artists, and business people. This is going to be the area where will need to develop and become to compete globally. It seems like the manufacturing sector is being overtaken by cheap labor, and in many cases so too the engineering and higher skilled positions. Hence, we will need to make a shift as a country to being creators and business people, versus laborers and technicians. So it is going to start with the teaching of business skills and entrepreneurship skills to kids, including art and design. The teaching of these subjects as primary subjects versus secondary subjects like they have in the past is going to be our ticket. Of course this is only my hunch. What do you think? Feel free to comment to let me know what your ideas are on our countries place in the global economy. I am curious to know, whether or not you think changing the education system’s philosophy on what is most important in preparing the future of America’s workforce is important?

Here is a great post that includes 5 great entrepreneurship education resources to help you get started. To take a look [Click Here].

A fellow entrepreneur gave me a slight nudge recently that motivated me to post this blog. I think you will certainly find value in it as it incorporates some of the best minds of the 21st century.

Remember….. The secret to learning as an entrepreneur is to mix equal parts of inspiration and perspiration. Hard work without a vision is futile, while a great idea without execution is similarly worthless. In these TED talks, you’ll find the inspiration you need and the know-how to get it done.

Seth Godin on Standing Out: What makes you so special? Seth Godin’s talk is all about why people just ignore the ordinary. In order to stand out, Godin says, you must be either bad or bizarre. Boring will not bring you success.

Alex Tabarrok on How Ideas Trump Crises: Economist Alex Tabarrok’s talk celebrates the practice of idea sharing. He explains that through free trade and globalization, we are now sharing more than ever to create a community that’s more healthy and prosperous than before.

Dean Kamen on Inventing and Giving: Get inspired by this master of invention with more than 150 patents under his belt. In this talk, Dean Kamen discusses the Segway, and takes a look at even more big ideas, including portable energy and water purification to be used in developing countries.

Richard St. John’s 8 Secrets of Success: How does success happen, and why do people succeed? Richard St. John knows, and he’ll tell you in this talk. Watch the video to learn the lessons of success.

Tony Robbins: As an entrepreneur, your choices make a difference. You can impact the future of your business, an industry, a community. In this talk, life coach Tony Robbins examines the invisible forces that motivate your actions.

Derek Sivers: How to Start a Movement: Do you want to make an impact? Derek Sivers can show you how. Explore this talk, and you will see how movements really get started — with the power of two.

Itay Talgam: Lead Like the Great Conductors: Entrepreneurs must exhibit excellent leadership and management skills. You work much like a conductor — orchestrating different parts to ensure that they all come together like they should. In this talk, Itay Talgam examines how orchestra conductors can provide entrepreneurs with crucial lessons in leadership.

Gary Vaynerchuk: Do What You Love: Gary Vaynerchuk insists that there are no excuses for not doing what you love. If you’re a dreamer, but not quite yet a doer, Gary’s TED talk can give you the shot in the arm you need.

Richard Branson’s Life at 30,000 Feet: Find inspiration from Richard Branson, the entrepreneur who turned a record shop into the Virgin empire. This talk examines his career, near-death experiences, and some of his motivations.

I hope you enjoyed these 10 TED talks on Entrepreneurship. If you have any others that you think should be added to the list please share by leaving a comment.

In conclusion, the Educated Entrepreneur is all about empowering entrepreneurs world wide; therefore if you found these videos inspiring, you could do us a favor towards empowering more future entrepreneurs, by spreading the word on the following product that teaches entrepreneurship to kids. Thanks for visiting and thanks for your support.

Pareto Principle | Parkinson’s Law | Law of Averages | Law of Association

4 Laws & Principles every Entrepreneur should know and live by:

The Pareto Principle

The Pareto principle is a very popular law …my guess is that you’ve probably come across it or have even heard of it numerous times throughout your life… however it was most likely referred to with a different name. If you’ve ever heard of the 80-20 rule, or the law of the vital few, or even the principle of factor sparsity….then you’ve been exposed to the Pareto Principle.

Essentially this law states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. And naturally this applies to a great many things and events especially concerning to the entrepreneur. For starters…. as an entrepreneur….you’ve probably wondered why the distribution of wealth is the way it is….observing that just about 20% of the population has much of the wealth, while the other 80% doesn’t. Who knows, maybe this keen observation on your part is the exact reason you are an entrepreneur…. so you can in fact make your way to the top 20% :).

This principle is also very relevant for the entrepreneur for purposes of time management…..20% of the things you do will account for 80% of your results while 80% of the things you do will account for 20% of your results. I know…a bit depressing when you think about it….but this knowledge can be useful for creating and perfecting your plans of action. In addition, the principle will come into play when trying to understand why some customers buy your goods and services, and why some….let me rephrase that…many, don’t.

So when 80% of the people you approach with your products, services, or opportunities say no….just keep in mind that it’s not you….and most likely not what you’re offering, and that it’s just a bit of the Pareto Principle at play.

Parkinson’s Law

Parkinson’s Law is something all entrepreneurs should be aware of. Like the last law… you’ve probably experienced this one in the past but just haven’t been introduced to it formally. So…I’ll do the honors. Parkinson’s law was first articulated in an essay of The Economist in 1955 and has been made more or less mainstream by author/blogger/entrepreneur Tim Ferriss.

The law essentially postulates that… work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. So if you have ever had some friends or co-workers who were given an easy task to do with a somewhat large amount of time to complete….and yet they somehow managed to stay extremely busy, spending an inordinate amount of time on a task that you could have finished in a day….. well then, you’ve been acquainted to Parkinson’s Law.

This is essential knowledge for an entrepreneur….especially those new to being their own boss and in charge of running their businesses efficiently. The understanding of this law will help the new entrepreneur combat the programming received while they were an employee who wasn’t 100% vested in how long tasks actually took to complete. Ultimately, if one truly cherishes their time and leisure, and doesn’t want to be a slave to their business….knowing this law is critical.

Law of Averages

This is a great law for us. It’s the idea that probability will influence all occurrences in the long run, that one will neither win nor lose all of the time. For example, If it rains every day this week, by the law of averages we’re bound to get a sunny day soon. This colloquial term is a popular interpretation of a statistical principle called Bernoulli’s theorem. As an entrepreneur or professional, this law becomes important to you when you decide to start going after the deals, the partnerships, and the sales.

The more you experience the no’s and failures in the pursuit of your ventures….the more likely you are over time, to experience that crucial yes and ultimate success. A fantastic example I like to refer to, is the baseball player…. he strikes out 7 out of 10 times….and still get’s paid 5 million dollars per year. The same success awaits the entrepreneur who understands that with every no…they inch that much closer to their YES…and indeed their SUCCESS!

Law of Association

This law is often looked over for striving entrepreneurs but is crucial in moving towards the achievements you set for yourself. Basically this is a law which suggests that we become like the average of the five people whom we spend most of our time with.

Meaning….that everything about you will average out to be similar to those five people whom you are currently spending most of your time with. For instance, your income will tend to be the average of your five best friends’ incomes. If you want to raise the quality of your life, hang out with people who have already been there and done that…and who are living the quality life which you seek. If you want to become a better communicator, hang out with great communicators. If you want to be more positive, hang around with more positive and up beat people. If you want to be a terrific parent, spend lots of time with men and women who have mastered the art of parenting. If you want to start making at difference….get around those who are out there making some waves of impact. So in essence… birds of a feather flock together.

But…do you know why birds of a feather flock together? It’s because they’re all going in the same direction. They share a common vision. So if you’re going after a goal, any goal, go and find the people who have already achieved that goal, or who are well along the path to attaining that goal, and then be with them, hang out with them, camp on their doorstep if you have to. :). Joking aside…this is an important law to live by….so get out there and make some connections with those whose lives you want to be living.

And if you find your self in a situation where making critical associations with people is difficult because of your location, or because you just need some time to gain the courage to reach out, remember that the next best thing to associating with great company is reading great books. It was Rene Descartes after all who once said “The reading off all good books is like conversation with the finest men of the past centuries”.

“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” – Thomas Jefferson

Yes things are tough right now….

I understand it’s hard at the moment for many to find a job. I even understand that it is now a tad bit more difficult than usual for many to become wildly successful. But ……there’s nothing like a good challenge and a little bit of adversity to test the human spirit. What I see is a great many that are still waiting for the bottom of this market or the bottom of that market before they make their move, I see many waiting for things to get better before they begin to move forward and make things better, and worse of all, I see a great many who are waiting for a type of permission to dream again.

So… I just have to say it….if this is you, and if this is how you are thinking….then I think you have the wrong plan, and here is why. Because we are in America….and America is easy! Yes we are still in the country known as the land of opportunity, and Yes, we are still in the only country in all of the world that has the words DREAM immediately after it. I think it’s important that we not forget that there is no such thing as a Poland Dream, or an Irish Dream, or a Spanish Dream…..and how rare it is to find boats stowing away hundreds of people to get to any of these just mentioned countries. No….there just aren’t that many countries with walls slowing others from making their way in, nor are there people risking their lives to cross rivers and desserts just to get in. Yes…there is only one dream…and it is the American Dream.

So currently 9.7% of the country is unemployed… is this a bad thing? I don’t know…it depends on your perspective. I think that this can perhaps be seen as our time to shine… our time to overcome and grow. We have after all grown in GDP and economic output as a country during this slight depression which everyone is experiencing and is so depressed about . So why is every chum so glum? Well I’ll tell you…what appears to be happening is this, our country is growing, but…our workforce is not. We have 9.7% of of a country now without jobs because it doesn’t make financial sense to have them around. Essentially there has been such an increase in technology that just about 10% of our country has been outpaced by it and can’t seem to keep up. So as an economic entitiy we aren’t doing so bad…we are expanding, but as a populace we probably need to make some changes.

Now you can call me a glutton for pain but I think that on a much deeper level this can be seen as a test to each and every one of us who has found themselves out of work, or bereft of hope for the future. This little test is going to see if we can be creative enough, persistent enough, and productive enough to find the opportunities and the ideas that are interwoven throughout this great country. It’s a little test that if passed, will allow us to stand tall once again. So what that we have an almost 10% unemployment rate and heaps of national debt among other financial woes… It will behoove us to not forget that we are in a type of continual “Design Mode”…designing not just how bright our personal futures are going to be, but how bright our collective future is going to be as a country. No it’s not going to be easy, No we can’t go on strike, nor can we get paid by demand… we must earn it! We must take off our pajamas, put down the remote, and get out there, give our best and hustle our faces off!! So we put 10 resumes in today…now what? Are we going to go home and eat Cheetos and ice cream until tomorrow comes around so we can do it all over again, or are we going to go above and beyond.. put in 15 more that are thoughtfully adapted? Are we going stop there…or are we going to do more… and begin to THINK of, and then ACT on, the many hundreds of thousands of other ways that we can be of service to the community, the country, the world? I’ sincerely feel… that this is the only way that we can dig our way out, and be duly reimbursed, so we can begin living the way we wish, so we can begin living our little portion of what makes up this thing called the American Dream.

Consider this…. China is currently at 5% unemployment and Russia is at 8.5% unemployment….looks good right, but would you really want to live and work there? Employment in one of these countries is hardly the ideal career plan…(at least as far as I can tell based off of what I learned in my college Geography courses). The country of France is at 10%, and the last time I was there everyone seemed so defeated and somber I started to get a little depressed myself. (law of association I suppose) They didn’t have the spark that we have, they didn’t have in their eyes the glimmer of a greater tomorrow…. I couldn’t sense that essense…that energy, of individual empire builders like I feel when I am here at home. And Spain…one of my favorite countries in all the world is at 22% unemployment…..with their young workers ages 18 – 24 showing an astonishing unemployment rate of 54%! And this is a developed nation! So, what does all this mean? Well, if you are an American, perhaps you will more clearly recognize how blessed you are, and how much more privlege and opportunity you have even in this day and age…as you are more priveleged than 95 % of the world (95.46% to be exact). If you’ve read this and you are an American….It’s my hope that you will never again be able to say you didn’t know how much privlege and promise you had….because you are afterall in America…. and America is Easy!

A mentor of mine, Jim Rohn, who I’ve been following for a couple of years now, uttered a phrase that caught my attention, more so than usual while studying him recently. He had such a strong and significant impact on me on the day that I heard him say “profits are better than wages. Wages will make you a living, profits can make you a fortune.”

I found the phrase sage like. I remember repeating what he said to myself and then thinking about how truly difficult it most likely is to get rich on just wages alone, and how readily profits can be made if we focus our efforts on accumulating them. It was a pretty outstanding moment of clarity for me, and I still get the goose bumps whenever I think about it!

Following that phrase, Jim Rohn went on to make a point about how profits can actually change your whole attitude, even if you start part-time. I really warmed up to his suggestion, and perhaps you will too, because he states that it doesn’t matter if it’s part-time on your entrepreneurial business, your network marketing company, or your service business.

To Jim it didn’t matter. To him it could be a real estate business, a tutoring business as a teacher, a website design business, a landscaping business in the summer, a consulting practice, woodworking, or a hobby, heck, he even goes so far as to mention a business of hanging Christmas lights in the winter.

The magic he says, comes from the moment you start investing effort part-time into your own business, because it is then, that you will find how much more exciting it is to get up in the morning, look in the mirror, and go to work on your fortune, even if it is only a small portion of your schedule,… something like 10 – 15 hours per week.

How empowering would it be, to be able to go to work on your fortune every single day rather than going to work to just pay the rent or the bills? So you don’t get me or Jim wrong I will quote you some words directly from him when he says ” Now – it is noble to go to work to pay the rent, but if you could also parcel out part of your time – go to work to make your fortune. Your whole attitude changes; your spirit changes. It is in your voice. It is in your face. It is in your gestures. And then you can say, “I am now working full-time on my job and part-time on my fortune because I found a way to make profits.”

Wow….how amazing is that? Slightly magical isn’t it?!! What do you think on the idea of Wages Vs. Profits? Have you taken any steps to learn how you can make profits vs. wages? Are you teaching your kids these kinds of concepts? If not, why not?